 Book one of Leaves of Grass. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by phone. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Book one, Inscriptions. Once self-icing. Once self-icing, a simple separate person. Yet utter the word democratic, the word en masse. A physiology from top to toe icing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse. I say the form complete is worthier far, the female equally with the male icing. Of life immense in passion, pulse and power, cheerful, for freest action formed under the law's divine. The modern man icing. As I pondered in silence. As I pondered in silence, returning upon my poems, considering, lingering long. A phantom arose before me with distrustful aspect, terrible in beauty, age and power. The genius of poets of old lands, as to me directing like flame its eyes. With finger pointing to many immortal songs and menacing voice. What singest thou, it said. Nostow not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards, and that is the theme of war, the fortune of battles, the making of perfect soldiers. Be it so, then I answered. I too haughty shade also sing war, and a longer and greater one than any. Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferred and wavering. Yet me think certain, or as good as certain, at the last, the field the world, for life and death, for the body and for the eternal soul. Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles, I, above all, promote brave soldiers. In cabined ships at sea, the boundless blue on every side expanding, with whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves, or some lone bark buoyed on a dense marine, where joyous full of faith spreading wide sails, she cleaves the aether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night, by sailors young and old happily will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read, in full report at last. Here are our thoughts, voyagers thoughts. Here, not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said. The sky or arches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet, we feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, the tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid flowing syllables, the perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, the boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, and this is ocean's poem. Then falter not, O book, fulfil your destiny, you not a reminiscence of the land alone, you too, as a lone bark cleaving the aether, purposed I know not wither, yet ever full of faith, consort to every ship that sails, sail you, bear forth to them, fold it, my love. Dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf. Speed on, my book, spread your white sails, my little bark, athwart the imperious waves. Chant on, sail on, bear, o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea, this song from mariners and older ships, to foreign lands. I heard that you asked for something to prove this puzzle the new world, and to define America, her athletic democracy. Therefore I sent you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted, to a historian. You who celebrate bygones, who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life that has exhibited itself, who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates rulers and priests. I, habitant of the Alleghenies, treating of him as he is in himself in his own right, pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, the great pride of man in himself. Chanter of personality, outlining what is yet to be, I project the history of the future to the old cause. To the old cause, thou peerless, passionate, good cause, thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea, deathless throughout the ages, races, lands, after a strange, sad war, great war for thee. I think all war through time is really fault, and ever will be really fault, for thee. These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee. A war, O soldiers, not for itself alone, far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this book. Thou orb of many orbs, thou seething principle, thou well kept latent germ, thou centre, around the idea of thee the war revolving, with all its angry and vehement play of causes, with vast results to come for thrice thousand years. These recitatives for thee, my book and the war are one, merged in its spirit, I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee, as a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself, around the idea of thee, idolins. I met a seer, passing the hues and objects of the world, the fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense, to clean idolins. Put in thy chants, said he, no more the puzzling hour, nor day, nor segments, parts, put in, put first before the rest as light for all, and entrance song of all, that of idolins. Ever the dim beginning, ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, ever the summit, and the merge at last, to surely start again, idolins, idolins, ever the mutable, ever materials, changing, crumbling, recoheering, ever the ateliers, the factories divine, issuing idolins. Low, I or you, or woman, man or state, known or unknown, we seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, but really build idolins. The ostent evanescent, the substance of an artist's mood or savance studies long, or warriors, martyrs, heroes, toils, to fashion his idolin. Of every human life, the units gathered, posted, not a thought, emotion, deed, left out, the whole or large or small sound added up in its idolin. The old, old urge, based on the ancient pinnacles, low, newer, higher pinnacles, from science and the modern, still impelled, the old, old urge, idolins. The present, now and here, America's busy, teeming, intricate world of aggregate and segregate for only thence releasing, today's idolins. These with the past, of vanished lands, of all the reigns of kings across the sea, old conquerors, old campaigns, old sailors' voyages, joining idolins. Densities, growth, façades, strata of mountains, soils, rocks, giant trees, far-born, far-dying, living long, to leave idolins ever-losting. Exelt, wrapped, ecstatic, divisible but their womb of birth, of orbic tendencies to shape and shape and shape, the mighty earth idolin. All space, all time, the stars, the terrible perturbations of the sun, swelling, collapsing, ending, serving their longer, shorter use, filled with idolins only. The noiseless myriads, the infinite oceans where the rivers empty, the separate, countless free identities, like eyesight, the true realities, idolins. Not this the world, nor these the universes, they the universes, purport and end ever the permanent life of life, idolins, idolins. Beyond thy lectures, learn professor, beyond thy telescope or spectroscope, observer keen, beyond all mathematics, beyond the doctor's surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry, the entities of entities, idolins. Unfixed, yet fixed, ever shall be, ever have been and are, sweeping the present to the infinite future, idolins, idolins, idolins. The prophet and the bard shall yet maintain themselves in higher stages yet, shall mediate to the modern, to democracy, interpret yet to them, God and idolins. And thee, my soul, joys, ceaseless exercises, exaltations, thy yearning, amply fed at last, prepared to meet thy mates, idolins. Thy body permanent, the body lurking there within thy body, the only purport of the form thou art, the real I, myself, an image, an idolin. Thy very songs, not in thy songs, no special strains to sing, none for itself, but from the whole resulting, rising at last and floating, around full-orbed idolin. For him I sing. For him I sing. I raise the present on the past, as some perennial tree out of its roots, the present on the past. With time and space I him dilate and fuse the immortal laws to make himself by them the law unto himself, when I read the book. When I read the book, the biography famous, and is distant, said I, what the author calls a man's life, and so will someone, when I am dead and gone, write my life, as if any man really knew all of my life, why even I myself I often think no little or nothing of my real life, only a few hints, a few diffused feigned clues and indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here, beginning my studies. Beginning my studies the first step pleased me so much, the mere fact consciousness, these forms the power of motion, the least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, the first step I say old me and pleased me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wished to go any farther, but stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs. Beginners, how they are provided for upon the earth appearing at intervals, how dear and dreadful they are to the earth, how they inert to themselves as much as to any what a paradox appears their age, how people respond to them yet know them not, how there is something relentless in their fate all times, how all times mischoose the objects of their adulation and reward, and how the same inexorable price must still be paid for the same great purchase to the states, to the states or any one of them or any city of the states, resist much, obey little, once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty. On journeys through the states On journeys through the states we start, I, through the world, urged by these songs, sailing henceforth to every land, to every sea, we, willing learners of all, teachers of all and lovers of all, we have watched the seasons dispensing themselves and passing on, and have said, why should not a man or woman do as much as the seasons and diffuse as much? We dwell a while in every city and town, we pass through Canada, the northeast, the vast valley of the Mississippi and the southern states, we confer on equal terms with each of the states, we make trial of ourselves and invite men and women to hear, we say to ourselves, remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body and the soul, dwell a while and pass on, be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic, and what you effuse may then return as the seasons return, and may be just as much as the seasons, to a certain cantatreeche. Here take this gift, I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, one who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race, some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel, but I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any. Me imperturb, me imperturb standing at ease in nature, master of all or mistress of all, aplomb in the midst of irrational things, imbued as day, passive, receptive, silent as day, finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes less important than I thought, me toward the Mexican sea or in the Manahata or the Tennessee or far north or inland, a river man or a man of the woods or of any farm life of these states or of the coast or the lakes of Canada, me wherever my life is lived, oh, to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do, savantism. Thitter as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated, thither hours, months, years, thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute. Thither everyday life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates, thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admiring, as a father to his father going, takes his children along with him, the ship starting, low, the unbounded sea, on its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moon sails. Dependent is flying aloft as she speeds, she speeds so stately, below, emulous waves press forward, they surround the ship with shining, curving motions and foam. I hear America singing. I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be, blithe and strong, the carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, the mason singing his as he makes ready for work or leaves off work, the boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, the shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, the woodcutter song, the plowboys on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, the delicious singing of the mother or of the young wife at work or of the girl sowing or washing, each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, the day what belongs to the day, at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. What place is besieged? What place is besieged and vainly tries to raise the siege? Lo, I sent to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal, and with him horse and foot and parks of artillery, and artillery men, the deadliest that ever fired gun. Still, though the one I sing, one yet of contradictions made, I dedicate to nationality, I leave in him revolt, oh, latent right of insurrection, oh, quenchless, indispensable fire, shut not your doors. Shut not your doors to me, proud libraries, for that which was lacking on all your well-filled shells, yet needed most I bring. Fourth from the war emerging, a book I have made, the words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything, a book separate, not linked with the rest, nor felt by the intellect, but you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page. Poets to come. Poets to come, orators, singers, musicians to come. Not today is to justify me and answer what I am for, but you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, arouse, for you must justify me. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future. I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness. I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face, leaving it to you to prove and define it, expecting the main things from you to you. Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you, thou reader? Thou reader, throbst life and pride and love, the same as I. Therefore, for thee, the following chance. End of book one, recording by phone. Book two, of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Libberbox recording is in the public domain. Recording by phone. Starting from Pomanoch. One. Starting from fish-shape Pomanoch, where I was born, well begotten and raised by a perfect mother. After roaming many lands, lover of populous pavements, dweller in Manahata, my city, or on sedern savannas, or a soldier camped, or carrying my knapsack and gun, or a miner in California, or rude in my home in Dakota's woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring, or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess, far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing wrapped and happy, aware of the fresh free giver the flowing Missouri, aware of mighty Niagara, aware of the buffalo herds grazing the plains, the her suit and strong breasted bull, of earth, rocks, fifth-man flowers experienced, stars, rain, snow, my amaze, having studied the mockingbird's tones and the flight of the mountain hawk, and heard at dawn the unrivaled one, the hermit thrush from the swamp cedars, solitary, singing in the west, I strike up for a new world. Two, victory, union, faith, identity, time, the indissoluble compacts, riches, mystery, eternal progress, the cosmos, and the modern reports. This, then, is life. Here is what has come to the surface after so many throes and convulsions. How curious, how real, underfoot the divine soil overhead the sun. See revolving the globe, the ancestor continents away group together, the present and future continents north and south with the isthmus between. See vast, trackless spaces, as in a dream they change, they swiftly fill, countless masses debouch upon them, they are now covered with the foremost people, arts, institutions, known. See projected through time, for me an audience interminable. With firm and regular step they went, they never stop, Successions of men, Americanos, a hundred millions, one generation playing its part and passing on, another generation playing its part and passing on in its turn, with faces turned sideways or backwards towards me to listen, with eyes retrospective towards me. 3. Americanos, conquerors, marches humanitarian, foremost, century marches, libertad, masses, for you a programme of chance, chance of the prairies, chance of the long running Mississippi and down to the Mexican sea, chance of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, chance going forth from the center of Kansas and dense, equidistant, shooting in pulses of fire, ceaseless to vivify all. 4. Take my leaves, America, take them south and take them north, make welcome for them everywhere, for they are your own offspring, surround them east and west, for they would surround you, and you precedents connect lovingly with them, for they connect lovingly with you. 5. I conned old times, I sat studying at the feet of the great masters, now if eligible a dad the great masters might return and study me. In the name of these states shall I scorn the antique, why these are the children of the antique to justify it. 5. Dead poets, philosophs, priests, martyrs, artists, inventors, governments, long sins, language shapers on other shores, nations once powerful, now reduced, withdrawn or desolate. 6. I dare not proceed till I respectfully credit what you have left wafted hither. 7. I have perused it, own it is admirable, moving a while among it, think nothing can ever be greater, nothing can ever deserve more than it deserves. 7. Regarding it all intently a long while, then dismissing it, I stand in my place with my own day here. 8. Here lands female and male, here the airship and heiress ship of the world, here the flame of materials, here spirituality the translatress, the openly avowed, the ever tending, the finale of visible forms, the satisfier after due long waiting, now advancing. Yes, here comes my mistress, the soul. 6. The soul, forever and forever, longer than soil is brown and solid, longer than water, out and flows. I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems, and I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, for I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and of immortality. I will make a song for these states that no one state may under any circumstances be subjected to another state, and I will make a song that there shall be comedy by day and by night between all the states and between any two of them, and I will make a song for the heiress of the president, full of weapons with menacing points, and behind the weapons countless dissatisfied faces, and a song make I of the one formed out of all, the fanged and glittering one whose head is over all, resolute warlike one including and over all, however high the head of any else that head is over all. I will acknowledge contemporary lands, I will trail the whole geography of the globe, and salute courteously every city large and small, and employments I will put in my poems that with you is heroism upon land and sea, and I will report all heroism from an American point of view. I will sing the song of companionship, I will show what alone must finally compact these. I believe these are to found their own ideal of manly love, indicating it in me. I will therefore let flame for me the burning fires that were threatening to consume me. I will lift what has too long kept down those smoldering fires. I will give them complete abandonment. I will write the evangel poem of comrades and of love, for who but I should understand love with all its sorrow and joy, and who but I should be the poet of comrades? 7. I am the credulous man of qualities, ages, races. I advance from the people in their own spirit. Here is what sings unrestricted faith. Omnus, omnus, that others ignore what they may. I made the poem of evil also, I commemorate that part also. I am myself just as much evil as good, and my nation is, and I say there is in fact no evil, or if there is, I say it is just as important to you, to the land or to me, as anything else. I too, following many, and followed by many, inaugurate a religion, I descend into the arena. It may be I am destined to utter the loudest cries there, the winners peeling shouts, who knows, they may rise from me yet, and soar above everything. Each is not for its own sake, I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake. I say no man has ever yet been half devout enough, none has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough. None has begun to think how divine he himself is, and how certain the future is. I say that a real and permanent grandeur of these states must be their religion, otherwise there is just no real and permanent grandeur, nor character, nor life worded a name without religion, nor land, nor man or woman without religion. What are you doing, young man? Are you so earnest, so given up to literature, science, art, amours? These ostensible realities, politics, points, your ambition or business, whatever it may be. It is well, against such I say not a word, I am their poet also. But behold, such swiftly subside, burnt up for religion's sake, for not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of the earth, any more than such are to religion. 9. What do you seek so pensive and silent? What do you need, camarado? Dear son, do you think it is love? Listen, dear son, listen America, daughter or son, it is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet it satisfies, it is great, but there is something else very great, it makes the whole coincide. It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands sweeps and provides for all. 10. Know you solely to drop in the earth the germs of a greater religion, the following chance each for its kind, I sing. 11. My comrade, for you to share with me two greatnesses and a third one rising, inclusive and more resplendent, the greatness of love and democracy, and the greatness of religion. 12. Melange mine own, the unseen and the seen, mysterious ocean where the streams empty, prophetic spirit of materials shifting and flickering around me, living beings, identities now doubtless near us in the air that we know not all, contact daily and hourly that will not release me, these selecting, these in hints demanded of me. 13. Not he, with a daily kiss onward from childhood kissing me, has winded and twisted around me that which holds me to him, any more than I am held to the heavens and all the spiritual world, after what they have done to me, suggesting themes. 14. Oh, such themes, equalities, oh divine average, warblings under the sun, ushered as now, or at noon or setting, strains musical flowing through ages, now reaching hither, I take to your reckless and composite chords, add to them, and cheerfully pass them forward. 15. As I have walked in Alabama my morning walk, I have seen where the she-bird, the mockingbird, sat on her nest and the briars hatching her brood. I have seen the he-bird also, I have paused to hear him near at hand, inflating his throat and joyfully singing. And while I paused it came to me that what he really sang for was not there only, nor for his mate, nor himself only, nor all sent back by the echoes, but subtle, clandestine, away beyond, a charge transmitted and gift occult for those being born. 12. Democracy, near at hand to you, a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing. Matham, for the bread beyond us and others, for those who belong here and those to come, I exultant to be ready for them, will now shake out Carol's stronger and haughtier than have ever yet been heard upon earth. I will make the songs of passion to give them their way, and your songs outlawed offenders, for I scan you with kindred eyes and carry you with me the same as any. I will make the true poem of riches to earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward and is not dropped by death. I will effuse egotism and show it underlying all, and I will be the bard of personality, and I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other. And sexual organs and acts, do you concentrate in me, for I am determined to tell you with courageous clear voice to prove you illustrious, and I will show that there is no imperfection in the present and can be none in the future. And I will show that whatever happens to anybody, it may be turned to beautiful results, and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death, and I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, and that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any. I will not make poems with reference to parts, but I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble, and I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days. And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference to the soul, because having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the soul. 13. Was somebody asking to see the soul? See your own shape and countenance, persons, substances, beasts, the trees, the running rivers, the rocks and sands. All hold spiritual joys and afterwards loosen them. How can the real body ever die and be buried? Of your real body and any man's or woman's real body, item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners and pass to fitting spheres, carrying what has accrued to it from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Not the types set up by the printer return their impression, the meaning, the main concern, any more than a man's substance and life, or a woman's substance and life, return in the body and the soul, indifferently, before death and after death. Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern, and includes and is the soul. Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it? 14. Whoever you are, to you, endless announcements. Daughter of the lands, did you wait for your poet? Did you wait for one with a flowing mouth and indicative hand? Towards the male of the states and toward the female of the states, exulting words, words to democracy's lands. Interlinked food-yielding lands, land of coal and iron, land of gold, land of cotton, sugar, rice, land of wheat, beef, pork, land of wool and hemp, land of the apple and the grape. Land of the pastoral plains, the grass fields of the world, land of those sweet-aired, interminable plateaus, land of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of Adobe. Lands where the northwest Columbia wines and where the southwest Colorado wines, land of the eastern Chesapeake, land of the Delaware, land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, land of the old Thirteen, Massachusetts land, land of Vermont and Connecticut, land of the ocean shores, land of Sierras and Peaks, land of boatmen and sailors, fishermen's land, inextricable lands, the clutched together, the passionate ones, the side-by-side, the elder and younger brothers, the bony limbed, the Greek women's land, the feminine, the experienced sisters and the inexperienced sisters, far-breathed land, arctic-braced, Mexican-breathed, the diverse, the compact, the Pennsylvanian, the Virginian, the double Carolinian. Oh, all and each well-loved by me, my intrepid nations, oh, I at any rate include you all with perfect love. I cannot be discharged from you, nor from anyone sooner than another. Oh, death, for all that I am yet a few unseen this hour with irrepressible love. Walking New England, a friend, a traveller, splashing my bare feet in the edge of the summer ripples on Pomanox Sands, crossing the prairies, dwelling again in Chicago, dwelling in every town, observing shows, births, improvements, structures, arts, listening to orators and oratresses in public halls, of and through the states as during life, each man and woman, my neighbour, the Louisianian, the Georgian, as near to me, and I as near to him and her, the Mississippian and Orcansian, yet with me, and I yet with any of them, yet upon the plains west of the Spinal River, yet in my house of Adobe, yet returning eastward, yet in the seaside state or in Maryland, yet Canadian, cheerily braving the winter, the snow and ice welcome to me, yet a true sun, either of Maine or of Granite State or the Narragansett Bay State or the Empire State, yet sailing to other shores to annex the same, yet welcoming every new brother, hereby applying these leaves to the new ones from the hour they unite with the old ones, coming among the new ones myself to be their companion and equal, coming personally to you now, and joining you to acts, characters, spectacles, with me, fifteen, with me, with firm holding, yet haste, haste on, for your life, adhere to me, I may have to be persuaded many times before I consent to give myself really to you, but what of that? Must not nature be persuaded many times? No dainty dolce effetuoso I, bearded, sunburned, grey necked, forbidding, I have arrived to be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the universe, for such I afford whoever can persevere to win them. Sixteen. On my way, a moment I pause, hear for you and hear for America. Still the present I raise aloft, still the future of the states I harbinge glad and sublime, and for the past I pronounce what the air holds of the red aborigines, the red aborigines, leaving natural breaths, sounds of rain and winds, coals as of birds and animals in the woods, syllables to us for names, okoni, kooza, otua, monogaheda, sok, naches, chatahoochi, kakuita, oronoko, babash, mayami, sagano, chipua, oshkosh, valavala, leaving such to the states they melt, they depart, charging the water and the land with names. Seventeen. Expanding and swift, henceforth, elements, breeds, adjustments, turbulent, quick and audacious, a world primal again, vistas of glory incessant and branching, a new race dominating previous ones and grander far, with new contests, new politics, new literatures and religions, new inventions and arts. These, my voice announcing, I will sleep no more but arise. You oceans that have been calm within me, how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms. Eighteen. Sea, steamer steaming through my poems. Sea, in my poems, immigrants continually coming and landing. Sea, in area, the wigwam, the trail, the hunter's hut, the flatboat, the mace-leave, the claim, the rude fence, and the backwards village. Sea, on the one side, the western sea, and on the other, the eastern sea, how they advance and retreat upon my poems as upon their own shores. Sea, pastures and forests in my poems. Sea, animals wild and tame. Sea, beyond the call, countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass. Sea, in my poems, cities solid, vast, inland, with paved streets, with iron and stone edifices, ceaseless vehicles and commerce. Sea, the many-cylindered steam-printing press. Sea, the electric telegraph stretching across the continent. Sea, through Atlanticus depths, pulses American, Europe reaching, pulses of Europe duly returned. Sea, the strong and quick locomotive as it departs, panting, blowing the steam whistle. Sea, plowmen plowing farms. Sea, miners digging mines. Sea, the numberless factories. Sea, mechanics busy at their benches with tools. Sea, from among them superior judges, philosophs, presidents, emerge, dressed in working dresses. Sea, lounging through the shops and fields of the states. Sea, me well-beloved, close-held by day and night. Hear the loud echoes of my songs there. Pray to hints come at last. Nineteen. Oh, camarado close. Oh, you and me at last, and us too only. Oh, a word to clear one's path ahead endlessly. Oh, something ecstatic and undemonstrable. Music wild. Oh, now I triumph, and you shall also. Oh, hand in hand. Oh, wholesome pleasure. Oh, one more desire and lover. Oh, to haste firm holding. To haste, to haste, haste on with me. End of book two, recording by phone. Book three, part one of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. This Liberfox recording is in the public domain. Recording by phone. Song of myself. One. I celebrate myself and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loaf and invite my soul. I lean and loaf at my ease, observing a spare of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air. Born here of parents, born here, from parents the same, and their parents the same. I, now thirty-seven years old, in perfect health begin, hoping to seize not till death. Crades and schools in abeyance, retiring back a while, suffice at what they are, but never forgotten. I harbour for good or bad. I permit to speak at every hazard. Nature without check with original energy. Two. Houses and rooms are full of perfumes. The shells are crowded with perfumes. I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it, and like it. The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it. The atmosphere is not a perfume. It has no taste of the distillation. It is odorless. It is for my mouth forever. I am in love with it. I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked. I am mad for it to be in contact with me. The smoke of my own breath, echoes, ripples, buzzed whispers, love root, silk thread, crotch and vine. My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs. The sniff of grain leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-coloured sea rocks, and of hay in the barn. The sound of the belched words of my voice, loosed to the eddies of the wind. A few light kisses, a few embraces, are reaching around with arms. The play of shine and shade on the trees, as the supple boughs wag, that the light alone are in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hillsides. The feeling of health, the full noon drill, the song of me rising from bed and meeting the sun. Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much? Have you practised so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems. You shall possess the good of the earth and sun. There are millions of suns left. You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead. Nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me. You shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. Three. I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end. But I do not talk of the beginning or the end. There was never any more inception than there is now, nor any more youth or age than there is now, and will never be any more perfection than there is now, nor any more heaven or hell than there is now. Urge and urge and urge, always the procreate urge of the world. Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex, always a net of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life. To elaborate is no avail, learned and unlearned feel that it is so. Sure as the most certain sure, plum in the uprights, well and tritied, braced in the beams, stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical. I and this mystery here we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul. Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen, till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age, vexes age, knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go base and admire myself. Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, not an inch nor a particle of an inch. An inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest. I am satisfied. I see, dance, laugh, sing. As the hugging and loving bedfellows sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread, leaving me baskets covered with white howls, swelling the house with their plenty. I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes that they turn from gazing after and down the road, and forthwith cipher and show me to ascent exactly the value of one, and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead four. Trippers and Oscars surround me, people I meet, the effect upon me of my early life the reward and city I live in, or the nation, my latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new, my dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues, the real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love, the sickness of one of my folks or of myself or ill-doing or loss or lack of money or depressions or exaltations, battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events. These come to me days and nights and go for me again, but they are not the me myself. Apart from the pulling and hauling it stands what I am, stands amused, complacent, compassionate, idle, unitary, looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, looking with side-curved head, curious what will come next, both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders. I have no mockings or arguments. I witness and wait. Five. I believe in you, my soul. The other I am must not abase itself to you and you must not be abased to the other. Loaf with me on the grass. Loose the stop from your throat. Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best, only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, how you settled your head, assort my hips, and gently turned over upon me and parted the shirt from my buzzing bone and plunged your tongue to my bare stripped heart and reached till you felt my beard and reached till you held my feet. Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth and I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own and I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own and that all the men ever born are also my brothers and the women my sisters and lovers and that a celson of the creation is love and limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields and brown ants in the little wells beneath them and mossy scabs of the worm fence heaped stones, elder, mulling and pokeweed. Six a child said what is the grass fetching it to me with full hands how could I answer the child I do not know what it is any more than he I guess it must be the flag of my disposition out of hopeful green stuff woven or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord a scented gift and remembrancer designately dropped bearing the owner's name some way in the corners that we may see and remark and say who's or I guess the grass is itself a child the produced babe of the vegetation or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic and it means sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones growing among black folks as among white canuck, tuck-a-ho, congressman, cuff I give them the same I receive them the same and now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves tenderly will I use you curling grass it may be you transpire from the breasts of young men it may be if I had known them I would have loved them it may be you are from old people or from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps and here you are the mother's laps this grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers darker than the colorless beards of old men dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouses oh I perceive after all so many uttering tongues and I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing I wish I could translate the hints about a dead young men and women and the hints about old men and mothers and the offspring taken soon out of their laps what do you think has become of the young and old men and what do you think has become of the women and children they are alive and well somewhere the smallest sprout shows there is really no death and if ever there was it led forward life and does not wait at the end to arrest it and seized the moment life appeared all goes onward and outward nothing collapses and to die is different from what anyone supposed and luckier seven has anyone supposed it lucky to be born I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die and I know it I pass death with the dying and birth with the new washed babe and I am not contained between my hat and boots and peruse manifold objects no two alike and everyone good the earth good and the stars good and their adjuncts all good I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth I am the mate and companion of people all just as immortal and fathomless as myself they do not know how immortal but I know every kind for itself and its own for me mine male and female for me those that have been boys and that love women for me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted for me the sweetheart and the old maid for me mothers and the mothers of mothers for me lips that have smiled eyes that have shed tears for me children and to begetters of children undrape you are not guilty to me nor stale nor discarded I see through the broad cloth and gingham whether or no and am around tenacious acquisitive tireless and cannot be shaken away eight the little one sleeps in its cradle I lift the gauze and look a long time and silently brush away flies with my hand the youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill I peeringly view them from the top the suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair I note where the pistol has fallen the blab of the pave tires of carts slough of boot soles talk of the promenaders the heavy omnibus the driver with his interrogating thumb the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor the snow sleighs clinking shouted jokes pelts of snowballs for popular favourites the fury of roused mobs the flap of the curtain litter the sick man inside born to the hospital the meeting of enemies the sudden oath the blows and fall the excited crowd the policeman with his star quickly working his passage to the centre of the crowd the impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes what groans of overfed or half-starved who falls sun-struck or in fits what exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and give birth to babes what living and buried speech is always vibrating here what howls restrained by the quorum arrests of criminals slates adulterous offers made acceptances rejections with convex lips I mind them or the show or resonance of them I come and I depart nine the big doors of the country barn stand open and ready the dried grass of the harvest time loads the slow-drawn wagon the clear light plays on the brown-grey and green intertinged the armfuls are packed to the sagging moe I am there I help I came stretched atop of the load I felt its soft jolts one leg reclined on the other I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy and roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps alone, far in the wilds and mountains I hunt wandering amazed at my own likeness and glee in the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-killed game falling asleep on the gathered leaves with my dog and gun by my side the Yankee clipper is under her sky sails she cuts the sparkle and scud my eyes settle the land I bend at her prow or shout joyously from the deck the boatmen and clan-diggers rose early and stopped for me I tucked my trouser ends in my boots and went and had a good time you should have been with us that day round the chowder-cattle I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west the bride was a red girl her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking they had moccasins through their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their shoulders on a bank lounged the trapper he was dressed mostly in skins his luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck he held his bride by the hand she had long eyelashes her head was bare her coarse straight locks descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet the runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the wood-pile through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak and went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him and brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet and gave him a room that entered from my own and gave him some coarse clean clothes and remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness and remember putting plasters on the gals he stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north I had him sit next to me at table my fire-lock leaned in the corner eleven twenty-eight young men bathed by the shore twenty-eight young men and all so friendly twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome she owns the fine house by the rise of the bank she hides handsome and richly dressed off the blinds of the window which of the young men does she like the best the homeliest of them is beautiful to her where are you off to lady for I see you you splash in the water there yet stay stock still in your room dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty ninth bather the rest did not see her but she saw them and loved them the beards of the young men glistened with wet it ran from their long hair little streams passed all over their bodies an unseen hand also passed over their bodies it descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs the young men float on their backs their white bellies bulge to the sun they do not ask who sees as fast to them they do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch they do not think whom they south with spray twelve the butcher boy puts off his killing clothes or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market I loiter, enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and breakdown black smiths with grime and hairy chests and fire in the anvil each has his main sledge they are all out there is a great heat in the fire from the cinder-strewed threshold the light shear of their wastes plays even with their massive arms overhand the hammer swing overhand so slow overhand so sure they do not hasten each man hits in his place thirteen the negro holds firmly the reins of his four horses the block swags underneath on its tight over chain the negro that drives the long dray of the stoneyard steady and tall he stands poised on one leg on the string piece his blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hipband his glance is calm and commanding he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead his son falls on his crispy hair and mustache falls on the black of his polished and perfect limbs I behold the picturesque giant and love him and I do not stop there I go with the team also in me the caressor of life wherever moving backward as well as forward slewing to niches aside and junior bending not a person or object missing absorbing all to myself and for this song oxen that rattled the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade what is that you expressing your eyes it seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life my tread scares the wood drake and wood duck on my distant and day long ramble they rise together they slowly circle around I believe in those winged purposes and acknowledge red, yellow, white playing within me and consider green and violet and the tufted crown intentional and do not call the tortoise unworthy because she is not something else and the jay in the woods never studied the gamut yet thrills pretty well to me and the look of the bay mare shames silliness out of me 14 the wild gander leads his flock through the cool night yahonk he says and sounds it down to me like an invitation the pert may suppose it meaningless but I listening close find its purpose and place up there toward the wintry sky the sharp hoofed moose of the north the cat on the house sill the chickadee the prairie dog the litter of the grunting sow as they tug at her teats the brood of the turkey hen and she with her half-spread wings I see in them and myself the same old lull the press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections they scorn the best I can do to relate them I am enamoured of growing outdoors of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods of the builders and stirrers of ships of axes and moles and the drivers of horses I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out what is commonest, cheapest, narrowest, easiest is me me going in for my chances spending for vast returns adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me not asking the sky to come down to my good will battering it freely, forever fifteen the pure contralto sings in the organ loft the carpenter dresses his plank the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp the married and unmarried children ride home to their thanksgiving dinner the pilot seizes the kingpin he heaves down with a strong arm the mate stands braced in the whale boat lance and harpoon are ready the duck shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches the deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar the spinning girl pretreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel the farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a first day loaf and looks at the oats and rye the lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case he will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bedroom the jaw printer with grey head and gaunt jaws works at his case he turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blur with the manuscript the malformed limbs are tied to the surgeon's table what is removed drops horribly in a pail the quadruined girl is sold at the auction stand the drunkard nods by the bar room stove the machinist rolls up his sleeves the policeman travels his beat the gatekeeper marks who pass the young fellow drives the express wagon I love him though I do not know him the half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race the western turkey shooting draws old and young some lean on their rifles some sit on logs out from the crowd steps the marksman takes his position levels his peace the groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee as the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar field the overseer fused him from his saddle the bugle calls in the ballroom the gentlemen run for their partners the dancers bow to each other the youth lies awake in the cedar-roofed garret and hearks to the musical ring the wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the huron the squall wrapped in her yellow hemmed cloth is offering moccasins and bead bags for sale the connoisseur peers along the exhibition gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways as the deckhands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers the young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball and stops now and then for the nuts the one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago born her first child the clean-haired janky girl works with her sewing machine or in the factory or mill the paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the notebook the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold the canal-boy trots on the tow-path the book-keeper counts at his desk the shoemaker waxes his thread the conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him the child is baptized the convert is making his first professions the regatta is spread on the bay the race has begun how do white sails sparkle the drover, watching his drove sings out to them that would stray the peddler sweats with his pack on his back the purchaser higgling about the odd scent the bride unrumples her white dress the minute hand of the clock moves slowly the opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-opened lips the prostitute dragles her shoal her bonnet bulbs on her tipsy and pimpled neck the crowd laugh at her black-guard oats the men jeer and wink to each other miserable, I do not laugh at your oats nor jeer you the president holding a cabinet-counsel is surrounded by the great secretaries on the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly, the twined arms the crew of the fish-mack pack repeated layers of halibut and a hold the missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle as the fair-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the jingling of loose change the floor-men are laying the floor the tinners are tinning the roof the masons are calling for mortar in single file each shouldering his hold pass onward the laborers seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gathered it is the fourth of seven months in full arms seasons pursuing each other the plower plows, the mower mows and the wintergrain falls in the ground off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface the stumps stand thick round the clearing the squatter strikes deep with his axe flat boatmen make fast towards dusk near the cottonwood or pecan trees coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red River or through those drained by the Tennessee or through those of the Arkansas torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahoochee or Ultamaha patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons around them in walls of adobe in canvas tents rest hunters and trappers after their day's sport the city sleeps and the country sleeps the living sleep for their time the dead sleep for their time the old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife and these tend inward to me and I tend outward to them and such as it is to be of these more or less I am and of these one and all I weave the song of myself 16 I am of old and young of the foolish as much as the wise regardless of others ever regardless of others maternal as well as paternal a child as well as a man stuffed with the stuff that is coarse and stuffed with the stuff that is fine one of the nation of many nations the smallest the same and the largest the same a sadderner soon as an ordner a planter nonchalant and hospitable down by the okonee I live a Yankee bound my own way ready for trade my joints the limberest joints on earth and the sternest joints on earth a Kentuckian walking the veil of the Elkhorn in my deerskin leggings a Louisianian or Georgian a boatman over lakes or bays or along coasts a Hoosier badger buckeye at home on Canadian snowshoes or up in the bush or with fishermen off Newfoundland at home in the fleet of ice boats sailing with the rest and tacking at home on the hills of Vermont or in the woods of Maine or the Texan ranch a comrade of Californians comrade of free northwesterners loving their big proportions comrade of raftsmen and coalmen comrade of all who shake hands and welcome to drink and meet a learner with the simplest a teacher of the thoughtfulest a novice beginning yet experienced of myriads of seasons of every hue and cast am I of every rank and religion a farmer, mechanic, artist, gentleman sailor, quaker prisoner, fancy man rowdy, lawyer physician, priest I resist anything better than my own diversity breathe the air but leave plenty after me and am not stuck up and am in my place the moth and the fish eggs are in their place the bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their place the palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place 17 these are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands they are not original with me if they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing if they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing if they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing this is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is this is the common air that bathes the glow 18 with music strong I come with my cornets and my drums I play not marches for accepted victors only I play marches for conquered and slain persons have you heard that it was good to gain the day I also say it is good to fall battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won I beat and pound for the dead I blow through my humble shores my loudest and gayest for them Vive us to those who have failed and to those whose war vessels sank in the sea and to those themselves who sank in the sea and to all generals that lost engagements and all overcome heroes and the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known 19 this is the meal equally set this is the meat for natural hunger it is for the wicked just same as the righteous I make appointments with all I will not have a single person slighted or left away the kept woman, sponger, thief are hereby invited the heavy-lipped slave is invited the venerally is invited there shall be no difference between them and to rest this is the press of a bashful hand this the float and odour of hair this the touch of my lips to yours this the murmur of yearning this the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face this the thoughtful merge of myself and the outlet again do you guess I have some intricate purpose well I have for the fourth-man showers have and the mica on the side of a rock has do you take it I would astonish does the daylight astonish does the early red-starred twittering through the woods do I astonish more than day this hour I tell things in confidence I might not tell everybody but I will tell you 20 who goes there hankering, gross, mystical, nude how is it I extract strength from the beef I eat what is a man anyhow what am I what are you all I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own else it were time lost listening to me I do not snivel that snivelled a world over that months are vacuums and a ground but wallow and filth whimpering and trickling filled with powers for invalids conformity goes to the fourth removed I wear my hat as I please indoors or out why should I pray why should I venerate and be ceremonious having pride stirred a strata analysed to a hair counselled with doctors and calculated close I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones in all people I see myself none more and not one barley corn less and a good or bad I say of myself say of them I know I am solid and sound to me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow all are written to me and I must get what writing means I know I am deathless I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenters compass I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night I know I am August I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood I see that the elementary laws never apologise I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all I exist as I am that is enough no other in the world be aware I sit content and if each and all be aware I sit content one world is aware and by far the largest to me and that is myself and whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I can wait my foothold is tenant and mortised in granite I laugh at what you call the solution and I know the amplitude of time 21 I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul the pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me the first I graft and increase upon myself the latter I translate into new tongue I am the poet of the woman the same as the man and I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man and I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men I chant the chant of dilation or pride we have had ducking and deprecating about enough I show that size is only development have you outstripped the rest? are you the president? it is a trifle they will more than arrive there every one and still pass on I am he that walks with a tender and growing night I call to the earth and sea half held by the night press close bear buzzing night press close magnetic nourishing night night of south winds night of the large few stars still nodding night mad naked summer night smile of voluptuous cool breath earth earth of the slumbering and liquid trees earth of the parted sunset earth of the mountains misty topped earth of the vitrious pore of the full moon just tinged with blue earth of shine and dark muttering the tide of the river earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake far swooping elbowed earth rich apple blossomed earth smile for your lover comes prodigal you have given me love therefore I to you give love oh unspeakable passionate love thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight we hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other 22 you see I resign myself to you also I guess what you mean I behold from the beach your crooked fingers I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me we must have a turn together I in dress hurry me out of sight of the land cushion me soft rock me in billowy drowns dash me with amorous wet I can repay you see of stretched ground swells see breathing broad and convulsive breaths see of the brine of life and of unshuffled yet always ready graves howler and scooper of storms capricious and dainty sea I am integral with you I too am of one phase and of all phases partaker of influx and efflux I extoller of hate and conciliation extoller of amese and those that sleep in each other's arms I am he attesting sympathy shall I make my list of things in the house and skip the house that supports them I am not the poet of goodness only I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also what blurt is this about virtue and about vice evil propels me and reform of evil propels me I stand indifferent my gate is no fault finders or rejectors gate I moisten the roots of all that has grown did you fear some scruffler out of the unflagging pregnancy did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be worked over and rectified I find one side a balance and the antipedal side a balance soft doctrine a steady help a stable doctrine thoughts and deeds of the present our roads and early start this minute that comes to me over the past the sillions there is no better than it and now what behaved well in the past or behaves well today is not such wonder the wonder is always and always how there can be a mean man or an infidel 23 endless unfolding of words of ages and mine a word of the modern the word on mass a word of the faith that never box here or hence forward it is all the same to me I accept time absolutely it alone is without flaw it alone rounds and completes all that mystic baffling wonder alone completes all I accept reality and dare not question it materialism first and last imbuing hurrah for positive science long live exact demonstration fetch stone crop mixed with cedar and branches of lilac this is the lexicographer this the chemist this made a grammar of the old cartouches these mariners put the ship through dangerous unknown seas this is the geologist this works with the scalper and this is a mathematician gentlemen to you the first honors always your facts are useful and yet they are not my dwelling I bet enter by them to an area of my dwelling lest the reminders of properties told my words and more the reminders day of life untold freedom and extrication and make short account of neuters and gildings and favor men and women fully equipped and beat the gong of revolt and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire 24 Walt Whitman a cosmos of Manhattan the sun turbulent fleshy sensual eating drinking and breathing no sentimentalist no standard above men and women or apart from them no more modest than immolest unscrew the locks from the doors unscrew the doors themselves from their jams whoever degrades another degrades me and whatever is done or said returns at last to me through me the aflatus surging and surging through me the current and index I speak the password primeval I give the sign of democracy by God I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms through me many long dumb voices voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves voices of the diseased and despairing and of thieves and dwarves voices of cycles of preparation and accretion and of the threads that connect the stars and of wombs and of the father stuff and of the rights of them the others are down upon of the deformed, trivial, flat, foolish, despised fog in the air beetles rolling balls of dung through me forbidden voices voices of sexes and lusts voices veiled and I removed the veil voices indecent by me clarified and transfigured I do not press my fingers across my mouth I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart copulation is no more ranked to me than death is I believe in the flesh and the appetites seeing, hearing, feeling are miracles and each part and tag of me is a miracle divine am I inside and out and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from the scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer this head more than churches, bibles and all the creeds if I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body or any part of it translucent mold of me it shall be you shaded ledges and rests it shall be you firm masculine colter it shall be you it shall be you whatever goes to the tells of me it shall be you you my rich blood your milky stream pale strippings of my life breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you my brain it shall be your occult convolutions root of washed sweet flag timorous pond snipe nest of guarded duplicate eggs it shall be you mixed tussled hay of head beard brawn it shall be you trickling sap of maple fibre of manly wheat it shall be you sun so generous it shall be you vapours lighting and shading my face it shall be you you sweaty brooks and do's it shall be you winds whose soft tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you broad muscular fields branches of live oak loving lounger in my winding paths it shall be you hands I have taken face I have kissed mortal I have ever touched it shall be you I doubt on myself there is that lot of me and all so luscious each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy I cannot tell how my ankles bend nor whence the cause of my faintest wish nor the cause of the friendship I emit nor the cause of the friendship I take again that I walk up my stoop I pause to consider if it really be a morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books to behold the daybreak the little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows the air tastes good to my palate hefts of the moving world at innocent gambles silently rising freshly exuding scooting obliquely high and low something I cannot see puts upward libidinous prongs seas of bright Jews suffuse heaven the earth by the sky stayed with the daily clothes of their junction the heaved challenge from the east that moment over my head the mocking taunt see then whether you shall be master end of book 3 part 1 recording by phone